Crown of Stars (Page 184)

Possibly Sanglant was still alive.

The cold smile worn by the Lady of Battles goaded him forward. The hounds began to follow him, although they were terrified, so he commanded them to stay well back from the whirlpool of darkness.

He walked, and where he walked the galla swung wide around, avoiding him. His skin prickled where the tide of their passing brushed against him, but their touch did not devour him. As he walked through their ranks, he listened.

They had voices but not precisely words; they spoke, but not with a verbal language in the manner of humankind and her cousins. It sounded at first like the hissing of snakes, but even the hissing of snakes carries meaning. Deep within the tolling he heard what they were trying to communicate.

Pain. Pain. Pain. The breath of this world scalds us. We suffer. Let us go home. This soul called Sanglant is the gateway through which we can cross. Where has it gone?

He knelt beside Sanglant and pressed a hand to the side of that dark neck, but found no pulse. Around him, the galla loomed, more deadly than storm clouds and as black as the Pit. He could see nothing beyond them, only this patch of road and the body of the prince. It was as if the world had vanished, or never existed. Only the Lady of Battles gleamed, a presence without physical substance that yet permeated the world.

In the beginning existed the four pure elements: light, wind, fire, and water. Above these dwelled the Chamber of Light, and below them, in the depths, the Enemy, which is darkness. By chance, as the elements moved and mingled, they transgressed the limits set them, and the darkness took advantage of the momentary chaos to rise out of the pit and corrupt them.

“You will ever be with us,” he said to her, “but even so, I will never cease in the struggle against you.”

“Stay beside me.” Her smile was that of an irresistible temptress or a generous mother. It would be easy to believe that smile a worthy gift, and a worthier reward, but he knew better.

“So I will. You will not escape me.”

He picked up the griffin feather. Rising, he stepped in among the galla.

“Go back,” he said to them, extending his arm. They swayed into him, crowding as he cut through the black substance of the closest galla. With a snap, and a hiss, and a whiff of the forge, it vanished. The others followed, one by one, until the last agonized voice was drained from the world.

When he turned, hoping he had banished her, the Lady of Battles waited. The griffin feather held no power over her. He placed it on the body.

“The guivre holds these combatants in its thrall,” she said, watching him. “It cannot do so forever. Then they will fight. There is nothing you can do to stop it. You have admitted as much yourself. This is the way of the world.”

“You are mistaken.”

She laughed, turned her horse and, between one breath and the next, vanished into a shower of mist. Rain swept the field and passed swiftly into the west. Thunder boomed. The guivre shrieked, awaiting his command as it circled on an updraft.

He whistled. The hounds loped up to him, butting him with their great heads. He scratched the base of their ears and touched a palm to their cold moist noses. They turned from him and approached the body of the prince with more caution, ears down and tails stiff. Sorrow growled, and Rage nudged the body with her muzzle.

The dead man opened his eyes.

Rage startled back. Sorrow set up such a racket of barking that Alain clapped his hands over his ears. The body jerked in a most unnatural manner. Arms and legs shifted awkwardly as it clambered to its feet in a way no human person had ever moved. The griffin feather fell off its body to the road, and it seemed not even to notice.

“Who are you?” demanded Alain. He felt a little sick, seeing a puppet in what had once been a proud man.

“Where is he?” said Sanglant.

Although his strong tenor with its hoarse scrape sounded the same, Alain knew this was not Sanglant talking. Blood oozed from his belly, smearing the rings of his torn mail. Gray guts pouched from the ragged edges of the wound. One of his hands was smashed, and his leg left should not have been able to hold weight with the foot twisted sideways to the knee and the thigh crushed and shredded until flesh and bone were intermingled.

“Where is the one I love? They told me that I would find him if I came here, but he is not here.”

“Whom do you seek?”

“The ones born of earth called him ‘Heribert.’ I loved him because he favored me who was ugliest among my cousins, for we are born in the sphere of Erekes and many of us have not the beauty of our higher brethren. Yet he spoke kindly to me when others did not. But he walked away by the command of the prince of dogs and even when he returned to me he was not there. Only his shell. Where has he gone?”